Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN) is an American industrial rock band, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction. NIN's music straddles a wide range of genres, while retaining a characteristic sound using electronic instruments and processing. After recording a new album, Reznor usually assembles a live band to perform with him. The touring band features a revolving lineup that often rearranges songs to fit a live setting. On stage, NIN often employs spectacular visual elements to accompany its performances, which frequently culminate with the band destroying their instruments. Underground music audiences warmly received Nine Inch Nails in its early years. The band produced several highly influential records in the 1990s that achieved widespread popularity: many Nine Inch Nails songs became radio hits, two NIN recordings won Grammy Awards, and the band has sold over twenty million albums worldwide, with 11 million sales certified in the US alone. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed Nine Inch Nails at 94 on its list of the 100 greatest rock artists of all time. Despite this acclaim, the band has had several feuds with the corporate side of the recording industry. In 2007, these corporate entanglements resulted in Reznor announcing that Nine Inch Nails would split from its label and release future material independently. Since 1989, Nine Inch Nails has released eight major studio releases. The most recent releases, Ghosts I–IV and The Slip, both released in 2008, were released under Creative Commons licenses. Both were initially released digitally, with physical releases coming later. The digital release of The Slip was made available completely free of charge. NIN has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards and won twice for the songs "Wish" and "Happiness in Slavery", in 1992 and 1995 respectively. History Formation |thumb|right|150px]] In 1987, Trent Reznor played keyboards with a Cleveland band called the Exotic Birds, then managed by John Malm, Jr.. Reznor and Malm became friends, and when Reznor left the Exotic Birds to work on music of his own, Malm informally became his manager.Reznor v. J. Artist Management, Inc. et al., 365 F. Supp. 2d 565 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). At the time Reznor was employed as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studios, and asked studio owner Bart Koster for permission to record some demos of his own material for free during unused studio time. Koster agreed, commenting that it cost him "just a little wear on his tape heads". While assembling these, the earliest Nine Inch Nails recordings, Reznor was unable to find a band that could articulate the material as he desired. Instead, inspired by Prince, Reznor played all the instruments except drums himself. This role remains Reznor's on most of the band's studio recordings, though he has occasionally involved other musicians and assistants. In 1988, after playing its first shows supporting Skinny Puppy, Reznor's ambitions for Nine Inch Nails were to release one 12-inch single on a small European label. Several labels responded favorably to the demo material, and Reznor signed with TVT Records. Nine selections from the Right Track demos were later released in revised form on the band's first full-length studio release, Pretty Hate Machine in 1989. Reznor said in 1994 that he coined the name "Nine Inch Nails" because it "abbreviated easily", rather than for "any literal meaning". Other rumored explanations have circulated, alleging that Reznor chose to reference Jesus' crucifixion with nine-inch spikes, or Freddy Krueger's nine-inch fingernails. The Nine Inch Nails' logo, which consists of the letters "NIN" set inside a border with the second "N" mirrored, was designed by Reznor and Gary Talpas. The logo first appeared on NIN's debut, "Down in It", and was inspired by Tibor Kalman's typography on the Talking Heads album Remain in Light. Talpas, a native of Cleveland, would continue to design NIN packaging art until 1997. ''Pretty Hate Machine'' festival]] Written, arranged, and performed by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails' first album Pretty Hate Machine debuted in 1989. It marked Reznor's first collaboration with Adrian Sherwood (who produced the lead single "Down in It" in London, England without having met Reznor face-to-face) and Mark "Flood" Ellis. Flood's production would appear on each major Nine Inch Nails release until 1994, and Sherwood has done remixes for the band as recently as 2000. Reznor and his co-producers expanded upon the Right Track Studio demos by adding singles "Head Like a Hole" and "Sin". Rolling Stone's Michael Azerrad described the album as "industrial-strength noise over a pop framework" and "harrowing but catchy music"; Reznor proclaimed this combination "a sincere statement" of "what was in his head at the time". After spending 113 weeks on the ''Billboard'' 200, Pretty Hate Machine became one of the first independently released records to attain platinum certification. MTV aired videos for "Down in It" and "Head Like a Hole", but an explicit video for "Sin" was only released on the 1997 home video Closure. In 1990, NIN toured North America as an opening act for alternative rock artists such as Peter Murphy and The Jesus and Mary Chain. At some point, Reznor began smashing his equipment while on stage; Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed NIN's early success in front of rock oriented audiences to this aggressive attitude. Nine Inch Nails then embarked on a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991, where the band "stole the show" from despite numerous equipment problems. After a poor European reception opening for Guns N' Roses, NIN returned to America amid pressure from TVT to produce a follow-up to Pretty Hate Machine. In response, Reznor secretly began recording under various pseudonyms to avoid record company interference. ''Broken'' being tortured in the music video for "Happiness in Slavery"]] In 1992 Nine Inch Nails released Broken, an extended play featuring six songs and two bonus tracks. In the liner notes, Reznor credited the 1991 Nine Inch Nails touring band as an influence on the EP's sound. Reznor characterized Broken as a guitar-based "blast of destruction", and as "a lot harder ... than Pretty Hate Machine". Songs from Broken have earned NIN its only two Grammy Awards: a performance of the EP's first single "Happiness in Slavery" from Woodstock '94, and the second single "Wish". Peter Christopherson of the bands Coil and Throbbing Gristle directed a performance video for "Wish", but the EP's most infamous video accompanied "Happiness in Slavery". The video was almost universally banned for its graphic depiction of performance artist Bob Flanagan disrobing lying on a machine that pleasures, tortures, then kills him. A third video for "Pinion", partially incorporated into MTV's Alternative Nation opening sequence, showed a toilet that apparently flushes into the mouth of an person in bondage. Reznor and Christopherson compiled these three clips along with footage for "Help Me I Am In Hell" and "Gave Up" into a longform music video also called Broken. It depicts the murder of a young man who is kidnapped and tortured while forced to watch the videos. This footage was never officially released, but instead appeared covertly among tape trading circles. A separate performance video for "Gave Up" featuring Richard Patrick and Marilyn Manson was filmed at 10050 Cielo Drive (then renamed "Le Pig studios" by Reznor), site of the Tate murders; a live recording of "Wish" was also filmed, and both videos appeared on the Closure video compilation in 1997. Broken was followed by the remix EP Fixed in late 1992. Rather than tour in support of the new material, Reznor began living and recording full-time at Le Pig, working on a follow-up free of restrictions from his record label. ''The Downward Spiral'' ]] Nine Inch Nails' second full-length album, The Downward Spiral, entered the Billboard 200 in 1994 at #2, and remains the highest-selling NIN release in the United States. Influenced by late-1970s rock albums Low and The Wall, by David Bowie and Pink Floyd respectively, The Downward Spiral features a wide range of textures and moods to illustrate the mental progress of a central character. Flood once again co-produced several tracks on the album, thought it proved to be his last collaboration with Nine Inch Nails. Longtime Flood-collaborator Alan Moulder mixed most of The Downward Spiral and subsequently took on more extensive production duties for future NIN releases. The album spawned two singles, "March of the Pigs" and "Closer", along with "Hurt" and "Piggy" which were issued to radio without a commercial single release. The music video for "Closer" was directed by Mark Romanek and received frequent rotation on MTV, though the network made extensive edits to the original, and highly graphic, version. A radio edit that partially mutes the song's explicit lyrics also received extensive airtime. The Closure video documented highlights from NIN's Self Destruct tour, including full live videos of "Eraser", "Hurt" and a one-take "March of the Pigs" clip made for MTV. Critical response to The Downward Spiral has generally been favorable: in 2005 the album was ranked 25th in ''Spin'''s list of the "100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005", and in 2003 Rolling Stone ranked the album number 200 on their "500 greatest albums of all time" list. After The Downward Spiral's release, Reznor produced an accompanying remix album entitled Further Down the Spiral, the only non-major NIN release to be certified gold in the United States. It featured contributions from electronic musician Aphex Twin, producer Rick Rubin, and former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, among others. The Self Destruct tour in support of the album reached its widest mainstream audience with a mud-drenched performance at Woodstock '94 that was broadcast on Pay-Per-View and seen in as many as 24 million homes. Nine Inch Nails received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and adding theatrical visual elements to the live show. Around this time, Reznor's studio perfectionism, struggles with addiction, and bouts of writer's block prolonged the production of a follow-up record. In 1997 Reznor produced the soundtrack to the David Lynch film Lost Highway. The release spawned the single "The Perfect Drug", the video for which was again directed by Mark Romanek. A tenth anniversary deluxe reissue of The Downward Spiral was released in 2004. ''The Fragile'' Five years elapsed between The Downward Spiral and NIN's next studio album, The Fragile, which arrived as a double CD in September 1999. On the heels of NIN's previous successes, media anticipation surrounded The Fragile more than a year before its release, when it was already described as "oft-delayed". When the album was finally released, it debuted at #1on the Billboard 200, selling 228,000 copies in its first week and receiving favorable reviews. Spin hailed The Fragile as the "album of the year", and several songs from it were regular features on alternative rock radio stations. However, the album slipped out of the Billboard Top 10 only a week after its release, and Reznor funded the subsequent North American tour out of his own pocket. According to Reznor, The Fragile was conceived by making "songwriting and arranging and production and sound design ... the same thing. A song would start with a drum loop or a visual and eventually a song would emerge out of it and that was the song." Canadian rock producer Bob Ezrin was consulted on the album's track listing; the liner notes state that he "provided final continuity and flow." Before the album's release, the song "Starfuckers, Inc." provoked media speculation about whom Reznor had intended its acerbic lyrics to satirize. . Cinesexuality critic Patricia MacCormack interprets the song as a "scathing attack on the alternative music scene", particularly Reznor's former friend and protégé Marilyn Manson. The two artists put aside their differences when Manson co-directed and appeared in the song's music video, retitled "Starsuckers, Inc." and performed on stage with NIN at Madison Square Garden in 2000. Nine Inch Nails released three commercial singles from the album in different territories: "The Day the World Went Away" in North America; "We're in This Together" in the EU and Japan (on three separate discs); and an EP with "Into the Void" as its lead track in Australia. Reznor followed The Fragile with another remix album, Things Falling Apart, released after the 2000 Fragility tour, which itself was recorded and released on CD, DVD, and VHS in 2002 as And All that Could Have Been. A deluxe edition of the live CD came with the companion disc Still, featuring stripped-down re-interpretations of songs from the band's entire career along with several new pieces of music. ''With Teeth'' Nine Inch Nails' fourth full-length album, With Teeth, was released in 2005, though it was leaked prior to its official release date. The album was written and recorded following Reznor's battle with alcoholism and substance abuse. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield described the album as "vintage Nine Inch Nails", while Robert Christgau criticized the album as "shtick". Like The Fragile, With Teeth debuted on top of the Billboard 200. The album's package art lacks typical liner notes; it simply lists the names of songs and co-producers, and the URL for an online PDF poster with lyrics and full credits. The entire album was made available in streaming audio on the band's official MySpace page in advance of its release date. A promotional video for the song "The Hand That Feeds" premiered on NIN's website in March 2005, rather than the traditional music channels, and Trent Reznor released the source files for "The Hand that Feeds" in GarageBand format a month later, allowing fans to remix the song. This release spawned an unofficial remix contest, in which over 500 fan remixes were submitted. Reznor also released the source files for the album's second single "Only" in a wider range of formats, including Pro Tools and ACID Pro; fans were also invited to access the band's official MySpace page to upload remixes, vote for favorites, and comment about them in a blog. David Fincher directed a video for "Only" using primarily computer-generated imagery. The third single, "Every Day Is Exactly the Same", was released in April 2006 along with an EP of With Teeth remixes, but a planned music video was reportedly scrapped in the post-production stage. The song topped Billboard's 2006 year-end Hot Dance Singles Sales and Hot Digital Songs charts. Nine Inch Nails launched a North American arena tour in autumn 2005, supported by Queens of the Stone Age and Autolux. Another opening act on this tour, hip-hop artist Saul Williams, performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in hurricane-stricken New Orleans, Reznor's former home. To conclude the With Teeth era of the band, NIN completed a tour of North American amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by Bauhaus, TV on the Radio, and Peaches. In late 2006, the official NIN website announced that a tour documentary entitled Beside You in Time would be released in three formats: DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. After taking a break to complete work on a follow-up album, NIN embarked on a world tour in 2007. Trent Reznor personally invited Ladytron to open for the band in Europe. ''Year Zero'' flyer from the ''Year Zero'' alternate reality game]] Nine Inch Nails' fifth studio album, Year Zero, was released only two years after With Teeth. With lyrics written from the perspective of multiple fictitious characters, Reznor described Year Zero as a concept album criticizing the United States government's current policies and how they will impact the world 15 years in the future. Critical response to the album was generally favorable, with an average rating of 76% on MetaCritic. Robert Christgau described Year Zero as Reznor's "most songful album". An alternate reality game emerged parallel to the Year Zero concept, expanding upon its storyline. Clues hidden on tour merchandise initially led fans to discover a network of fictitious, in-game websites that describe an "Orwellian picture of the United States circa the year 2022". Before Year Zero's release, unheard songs from the album were reportedly found on USB drives hidden at NIN concert venues in Europe. Fan participation in the alternate reality game caught the attention of media outlets such as USA Today and Billboard, who have cited fan-site The NIN Hotline, forum Echoing the Sound, fan club The Spiral, and NinWiki as sources for new discoveries. The album's first single, "Survivalism", and other tracks from Year Zero were released as multitrack audio files for fans to remix. A posting on the official NIN website announced the official Year Zero Remixed compilation, which is Nine Inch Nails' final new release on a major record label as of November 20, 2007. The remix album was accompanied by an interactive remix site with multi-track downloads and the ability to post remixes, after legal issues delayed its debut. ''Ghosts I–IV'' On February 16, 2008, Reznor posted a news update on the Nine Inch Nails website entitled "2 weeks." On March 2, the website released Ghosts I–IV, a 36-track instrumental album. Ghosts I–IV continues Reznor's experimentation with digital distribution. Like Saul Williams' The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (which Reznor helped produce), the album is available in many different ways, including a free download of the first volume, a $5 digital download, a $10 double CD set, a $75 deluxe edition set and a $300 Ultra-Deluxe limited edition package, which sold out all 2500 copies. The distribution of Ghosts I–IV has been described by many critics as a distribution method for other bands to follow, although some questioned the success of its technical implementation.Nine Inch Nails launch new massive album on torrent sites The album was created over a 10-week period and contributors included Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder, Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew, and Brian Viglione. Reznor has described the 36-track collection as a "soundtrack for daydreams" that is "the result of working from a very visual perspective — dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture". The album is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. On the Nine Inch Nails website, Reznor stated that an "exciting partnership and experience regarding this release" was to be announced soon. This partnership turned out to be a film festival style fan-video project sponsored by YouTube. Reznor has also stated that "more volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future." ''The Slip'' In early April 2008, Nine Inch Nails posted several photos on Flickr showing the band, including Josh Freese and Robin Finck, in a recording studio. An April 21, 2008 post on the band's website read "2 weeks!", echoing a similar message posted February 16, 2008 that ultimately resulted in the release of Ghosts I-IV. American radio stations began playing a new single entitled "Discipline" on April 22, 2008. The radio stations were allowed to provide their listeners with online links to the song, via NIN's website, for free download along with the multitrack files for remixing. On May 2, a new song titled "Echoplex" was released through the band's iLike profile on Facebook. On May 5, 2008, Nine Inch Nails released The Slip on its website without any advertisement or promotion. The album was made available for download free of charge, and the entire album is protected under the Creative Commons attribution Non-commercial Share-alike license. Physical copies in vinyl and CD format will be available for purchase in July. Since it was first made available, The Slip has seen individual downloads surpassing 1.4 million. Musical characteristics Allmusic's Steve Huey states that "Nine Inch Nails were the most popular industrial group ever and were largely responsible for bringing the music to a mass audience." Reznor has never referred to his own work as industrial music, but admits to borrowing techniques from such early industrial bands as Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept. Despite the disparity between those artists initially operating under the term "industrial" and Nine Inch Nails, it has become common in journalistic descriptions of Reznor's body of work to describe it as such. Reznor acknowledged in Spin magazine that "Down in It" was influenced by early Skinny Puppy, particularly their song "Dig It", other songs from Pretty Hate Machine were described in the same interview as synth-pop. Reviewing The Fragile, critic Steve Cooper noted that the album juxtaposes widely varied genres, such as solo piano in "The Frail" and drum and bass elements in "Starfuckers, Inc." Certain techniques and styles can be found throughout NIN's catalog. Songs such as "Wish" ( ) and "The Day the World Went Away" ( ) exhibit changes in dynamics, changing from quiet to loud and back again, and end with an abrupt stop. Reznor's singing follows a similar pattern, frequently moving from whispers to screams. The band's music also occasionally features complex time signatures, notably in "The Collector", from With Teeth, and concert favorite "March of the Pigs". Archived at FindArticles.com. Reznor also uses noise and distortion in his song arrangements, and incorporates dissonance with chromatic melody and/or harmony. These techniques are all used in the song "Hurt" ( ), which features a highly dissonant tritone played on guitar during the verses, a B5#11, emphasized when Reznor sings the eleventh note on the word "I" every time the B/F dyad is played. "Closer" ( ) concludes with a chromatic piano motif: the same melody that first appears during the chorus of Heresy, and then recurs on the title track of The Downward Spiral. On The Fragile, Reznor revisits this technique of repeating a motif multiple times throughout different songs, either on a different musical instrument, with a transposed harmony, or in an altered tempo. Influence Nine Inch Nails has influenced many newer artists, which according to Reznor range from "generic imitations" dating from NIN's initial success to younger bands echoing his style in a "truer, less imitative way". Following the release of The Downward Spiral, mainstream artists began to take notice of Nine Inch Nails' influence: David Bowie compared NIN's impact to that of The Velvet Underground. In 1997, Reznor appeared in Time magazine's list of the year's most influential people, and Spin magazine described him as "the most vital artist in music". The RIAA certified sales for 10.5 million units of the band's albums in the United States, which accounts for roughly half of the band's reported sales worldwide. Bob Ezrin, producer for Pink Floyd, Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Peter Gabriel, described Reznor in 2007 as a "true visionary" and advised aspiring artists to take note of his no-compromise attitude. During a rare appearance at the Kerrang! Awards in London that year, Nine Inch Nails accepted the Kerrang! Icon, honoring the band's long-standing influence on rock music. Live performances Trent Reznor is the sole official member of Nine Inch Nails. However, Reznor has typically formed a backing group of musicians to perform the songs in a live setting. This live band, also known as Nine Inch Nails, rearranges the band's studio catalog and creates a different sound than that of Reznor's studio recordings. Band members have occasionally been invited to participate in the recording process, but creative control within the studio has always been exclusively with Reznor. The band Tapeworm was created in 1995 as a Nine Inch Nails side-project between Reznor and various live-band members as a more "democratic" creative environment. The band initially included band members Danny Lohner and Charlie Clouser, but eventually expanded to feature other frequent NIN contributors Josh Freese, Atticus Ross, and Alan Moulder. However, after 11 years of studio sessions, no material was ever officially released from the group, and it was confirmed to be no longer active in 2005. The lineup of the live band has a tendency to change drastically between major tours: aside from Reznor remaining on lead vocals and guitar, no member of the live band has remained constant since its inception. Reznor cited the long gestation period between studio albums as part of the reason for these frequent personnel changes. The 2008 incarnation of the live band will feature Reznor with Alessandro Cortini, Robin Finck, Josh Freese, and Justin Meldal-Johnsen. Corporate entanglements Trent Reznor is an outspoken critic of the music industry, particularly corporate influence on his artistic freedom. As a result, Nine Inch Nails has clashed with several corporations, culminating in a decision to proceed as a free agent without any recording label contracts. In the early 1990s, Nine Inch Nails was involved in a much-publicized feud with TVT Records, the first record label to sign the band. Reznor objected to the label's attempted interference with his intellectual property. Ultimately, they entered into a joint venture with Interscope Records in which Reznor forfeited a portion of his publishing rights to TVT Music in exchange for the freedom of having his own Nothing Records imprint. In 2005, Reznor sued his former friend and manager John Malm, co-founder of Nothing, for fraud, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, and other claims. Their relationship was formally severed in a New York courtroom, with damages awarded to Reznor in excess of three million US dollars. At the behest of Prudential Securities bankruptcy proceedings, TVT put the rights to Reznor's recordings for the label on auction in 2005. This offer included the whole TVT catalog, including Pretty Hate Machine and a percentage of royalties from Reznor's song publishing company, Leaving Hope Music/TVT Music. Rykodisc, which did not win the auction but was able to license the rights from Prudential, re-issued the out-of-print Pretty Hate Machine CD on November 22, 2005. Ryko also reissued the "Head Like a Hole" CD and a vinyl edition of Pretty Hate Machine in 2006. The label considered releasing a deluxe edition, just as Interscope had done for The Downward Spiral; however, Reznor declined to produce it for them without payment. Nine Inch Nails was scheduled to perform at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, but withdrew from the show due to a disagreement with the network over the use of an unaltered image of George W. Bush as a backdrop to the band's performance of "The Hand that Feeds". Soon afterwards, Reznor wrote on the official NIN website: "apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me." MTV replied that it respected Reznor's point of view, but was "uncomfortable" with the performance being "built around partisan political statements". A performance by Foo Fighters replaced NIN's time slot on the show. In 2006, after being alerted by a fan website, Reznor issued a cease and desist to Fox News Channel for using three songs from The Fragile on air without permission. The songs "La Mer", "The Great Below", and "The Mark Has Been Made" appeared in an episode of War Stories with Oliver North detailing the battle of Iwo Jima. A post appeared on Reznor's blog, which read: "Thanks for the Fox News heads-up. A cease and desist has been issued. FUCK Fox Fucking News." Archived at The NIN Hotline. As part of the alternate reality game which accompanied the release of Year Zero, three tracks from the album were intentionally "leaked" prior to their official release at a number of NIN concerts on USB flash drives. The high-quality audio files quickly circulated the internet, and owners of websites hosting the files soon received cease and desist orders from the Recording Industry Association of America, despite the fact that the viral campaign, and the use of USB drives, was sanctioned by Nine Inch Nails' record label. The source that broke the story was quoted as saying "These fucking idiots are going after a campaign that the label signed off on." Disputes with Universal Music Group In May 2007, Reznor made a post on the official Nine Inch Nails website condemning Universal Music Group (parent company of Nine Inch Nails's record label, Interscope Records) for their pricing and distribution plans for Year Zero. He criticized the company's retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia as "ABSURD," concluding that "as a reward for being a 'true fan' you get ripped off." Reznor went on to say that as "the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more." Reznor's post, specifically his criticism of the recording industry at large, elicited considerable media attention. In September 2007, Reznor continued his attack on UMG at a concert in Australia, urging fans there to "steal" his music online instead of purchasing it legally. Reznor went on to encourage the crowd to "steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'." Reznor announced on October 8, 2007 that Nine Inch Nails had fulfilled its contractual commitments to Interscope Records and was now free to proceed as a "totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label". Reznor also speculated that he would release the next NIN album online in a similar fashion to The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, which he produced. Via another post on the official NIN website, Reznor again openly criticized Universal Music Group for preventing him from launching an official interactive fan remix website. Universal declined to host the site just days before its scheduled launch, citing the potential "accusation", in Reznor's words, "that they are sponsoring the same technical violation of copyright they are suing media companies for". Reznor wrote in response that he was "challenged at the last second to find a way of bringing this idea to life without getting splashed by the urine as these media companies piss all over each other's feet". Despite these obstacles, the remix website was launched on November 27, 2007. Discography Nine Inch Nails has produced eight major studio releases: *1989: Pretty Hate Machine *1992: Broken *1994: The Downward Spiral *1999: The Fragile *2005: With Teeth *2007: [[Year Zero (album)|Year Zero]]'' *2008: Ghosts I–IV *2008: The Slip In addition, the band has released four remix albums: *1992: Fixed *1995: Further Down the Spiral *2000: Things Falling Apart *2007: Year Zero Remixed Nine Inch Nails has also released numerous singles with extensive B-sides, and tour documentaries. The majority of these are labeled with ''Halo numbers'', a sequential numbering system used to catalog the core Nine Inch Nails body of work. Awards Grammy Awards and nominations Nine Inch Nails has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards and has won twice. Winning nominations are listed below in bold. *'"Wish" — Best Metal Performance, 1992' *''The Downward Spiral'' — Best Alternative Music Performance, 1994 (nomination) *'"Happiness in Slavery" — Best Metal Performance, 1995 (from ''Woodstock '94 compilation)' *"Hurt" — Best Rock Song, 1995 (nomination) *"The Perfect Drug" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 1997 (nomination) *The Fragile'' — Best Alternative Music Performance, 1999 (nomination) *"Starfuckers, Inc." — Best Metal Performance, 1999 (nomination) *"Into the Void" — Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2000 (nomination) *"The Hand That Feeds" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 2005 (nomination) *"Every Day Is Exactly the Same" — Best Hard Rock Performance, 2006 (nomination) References External links *Official website * * * *Official Nine Inch Nails YouTube channel Category:1980s music groups Category:1990s music groups Category:2000s music groups Category:Ableton Live users Category:American alternative rock music groups Category:American electronic music groups Category:American industrial music groups Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Industrial rock musical groups Category:Interscope Records artists Category:Movement against intellectual property Category:Musical instrument destruction Category:Musical groups established in 1988 Category:Nine Inch Nails Category:Ohio musical groups br:Nine Inch Nails bg:Найн Инч Нейлс ca:Nine Inch Nails cs:Nine Inch Nails cy:Nine Inch Nails da:Nine Inch Nails de:Nine Inch Nails et:Nine Inch Nails es:Nine Inch Nails fa:ناین اینچ نیلز fr:Nine Inch Nails gl:Nine Inch Nails ko:나인 인치 네일스 id:Nine Inch Nails is:Nine Inch Nails it:Nine Inch Nails he:ניין אינץ' ניילז lv:Nine Inch Nails lt:Nine Inch Nails hu:Nine Inch Nails mk:Nine Inch Nails nl:Nine Inch Nails ja:ナイン・インチ・ネイルズ no:Nine Inch Nails uz:Nine Inch Nails pl:Nine Inch Nails pt:Nine Inch Nails ro:Nine Inch Nails ru:Nine Inch Nails simple:Nine Inch Nails sk:Nine Inch Nails fi:Nine Inch Nails sv:Nine Inch Nails tr:Nine Inch Nails uk:Nine Inch Nails zh:九寸釘